Career
After a career in banking and insurance where Benham was part of the management team that formed Egg Banking, the UK's first internet bank, he changed careers to undertake senior roles with cross-border policing, the military and government agencies. These roles are subject to the Official Secrets Act.
A three year appointment in 2005 as Group Programme Director for Transport for London saw him instigate and oversee considerable transformation through the introduction of new technologies and lead TFL’s Innovation Centre with partners Imperial College London. This led to the introduction of groundbreaking solutions for passengers including contactless ticketing, and information as well as enhanced security prior to the 2012 Summer Olympics. Benham’s team prototyped (before 3G networks and iPhones) the groundbreaking uses of contactless passenger information transfer using mobile phones, and the use of avatars to communicate this.
In 2008, Benham entered the industry with director roles at Interserve and Reliance Security Group before entering academia to progress his vision of an MBA in Cyber Security.
Coventry University appointed Benham to the Chair of Cyber Security Management in 2013. He designed and accredited The National MBA in Cyber Security, which was launched in 2014 at The House of Commons with cross-party support, marking the first UK degree to receive this honour. This degree received the personal support of Prime Minister David Cameron and is the only degree to have been launched at The House of Commons with cross party support. [2] [3] [4]
During his time, Richard has also held visiting Chairs in Cyber Security at The University of Gloucestershire and Policing at Staffordshire University, and as a lecturer at one of the world's leading business schools IMD, based in Switzerland.
Richard currently holds a newly created chair at Abertay University of Dundee as the Professor of Cyber Innovation, Trust, and Ethics.
Since semi-retiring in 2022, he has served as the first Patron of The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. He is non-executive chair of several cyber security and technology businesses, including Systal Technology Solutions, Emerge Digital and start-up Lockdown Cyber Security.
In his spare time, he has written four bestselling fictional novels around the impact of global cyber threats, and the real-life impacts of both on society and the citizen.
Public Sector Engagement
Benham has been engaged since 1998 by the Home Office, FCDO, The Ministry of Defence, The Metropolitan Police, NCIS, SOCA and Europol on assignments with details unknown.
Richard Benham is a British Army officer reservist and one of the first to act as an adviser on Cyber-related matters to the Ministry of Defence. He holds a British Army Officer commission with the rank of Major within SGIS, part of Strategic Command (United Kingdom).
He has worked as a civilian adviser for both the UK Hydrographic Office and the Submarine Development Agency within the MoD on sensitive projects.
He has been a council member of The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust since 2016. [5]
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is a department of His Majesty's Government, with responsibility for culture and sport in England, and some aspects of the media throughout the UK, such as broadcasting.
Abertay University, formerly the University of Abertay Dundee, is a public university in the city of Dundee, Scotland. In 1872, Sir David Baxter, 1st Baronet of Kilmaron, left a bequest for the establishment of a mechanics' institute in Dundee and the Dundee Institute of Technology was formed in 1888. As early as 1902 it was recognised by the Scottish Education Department as an educational hub, and was one of the first to be designated a central institution, akin to an "industrial university". Abertay gained university status in 1994.
UST, formerly known as UST GLOBAL, is a provider of digital technology and transformation, information technology and services, headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. Stephen Ross founded UST in 1998 in Laguna Hills. The company has offices in the Americas, EMEA, APAC, and India.
WMG, University of Warwick is a UK-based research and education group combining collaborative research and development with education programmes working in applied science, technology and engineering. An academic department of the University of Warwick and a centre of the High Value Manufacturing Catapult, WMG was founded by Kumar Bhattacharyya in 1980 to help reinvigorate UK manufacturing and improve competitiveness through innovation and skills development.
Senapathy "Kris" Gopalakrishnan is an Indian businessman and the Chairman of Axilor Ventures, an accelerator that helps start-ups during the early stage of their business journey. Kris served as the vice chairman of Infosys from 2011 to 2014 and the chief executive officer and managing director of Infosys from 2007 to 2011. Kris is one of the co-founders of Infosys.
Coventry Business School is a business school located in Coventry, United Kingdom. It is a department of Coventry University and its Faculty of Business and Law. The School offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in subjects such as economics, marketing, event management and applied management.
The Queen's Award for Enterprise Promotion is one of the Queen's Awards for Enterprise, and is awarded annually to people who play an outstanding role in promoting the growth of business enterprise and/or entrepreneurial skills in other people. It is bestowed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Recipients receive an engraved crystal glass commemorative item, a Grant of Appointment and are invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace.
For example, people who:
Robert Peter Hannigan CMG is a cybersecurity specialist who has been Warden of Wadham College, Oxford, since 2021. He was a senior British civil servant who previously served as the director of the signals intelligence and cryptography agency the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and established the UK's National Cyber Security Centre. His sudden resignation as director was announced on 23 January 2017, and he stepped down at the end of April 2017 to pursue a career in private sector cyber security, academia and as a security commentator. In 2021 he became Warden of Wadham College, Oxford.
The United Kingdom has a diverse cyber security community, interconnected in a complex network.
The National Cyber Security Hall of Fame, founded by Larry Letow and Rick Geritz, was established in 2012 to recognize the contributions of key individuals in the field of cyber security; its mission statement is, Respect the Past - Protect the Future. According to its website, it is designed to honor the innovative individuals and organizations which had the vision and leadership to create the fundamental building blocks for the cybersecurity Industry. The organization also highlights major milestones in the industry's 40-year history through a timeline representation, which includes inductees and their corresponding accomplishments.
Alexander John Gervase Chalk is a British politician and barrister serving as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice since April 2023. He was elected Member of Parliament for Cheltenham in 2015. Chalk has previously served in other positions in the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Defence, and as Solicitor General for England and Wales.
Mérouane Debbah is a researcher, educator and technology entrepreneur. Over his career, he has founded several public and industrial research centers, start-ups and held executive positions in leading ICT companies. He is now professor at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates and founding director of the Khalifa University 6G Research Center. He is a frequent keynote speaker at international events in the field of telecommunication and AI. His research has been lying at the interface of fundamental mathematics, algorithms, statistics, information and communication sciences with a special focus on random matrix theory and learning algorithms. In the communication field, he has been at the heart of the development of small cells (4G), massive MIMO (5G) and large intelligent surfaces (6G) technologies. In the AI field, he is known for his work on large language models, distributed AI systems for networks and semantic communications. He received multiple prestigious distinctions, prizes and best-paper awards for his contributions to both fields and according to research.com is ranked as the best scientist in France in the field of electronics and electrical engineering.
The College of National Security was a proposed cyber security school for 16-19 year-olds, scheduled to open in September 2020 at Bletchley Park.
Dr. Alastair Carmichael MacWillson is a British cyber security professional. MacWillson is chair of the Institute of Information Security Professionals, and of Qufaro, and a founding director of Cambridge Analytica. He is, additionally, a principal at the Chertoff Group.
Darren Paul Jones is a British Labour politician serving as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury since 2023. He previously served as Chair of the House of Commons Business and Trade Select Committee from 2020 to 2023. He has been the Member of Parliament for Bristol North West since 2017.
Mariarosaria Taddeo is a senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, part of the University of Oxford, and deputy director of the Digital Ethics Lab. Taddeo is also an associate scholar at Said Business School, University of Oxford.
James M. Manyika is a Zimbabwean-American academic, consultant, and business executive. He is known for his research and scholarship into the intersection of technology and the economy, including artificial intelligence, robotics automation, and the future of work. He is Google's first Senior Vice President of Technology and Society, reporting directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. He focuses on "shaping and sharing" the company's view on the way tech affects society, the economy, and the planet. In April 2023, his role was expanded to Senior Vice President for Research, Technology & Society and includes overseeing Google Research and Google Labs and focusing more broadly on helping advance Google’s most ambitious innovations in AI, Computing and Science responsibly. He is also Chairman Emeritus of the McKinsey Global Institute.
Prashant Pillai is an Indian-born British computer scientist. He is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. He was previously the Associate Dean for Research and Knowledge Exchange and Professor of Cyber Security at the University of Wolverhampton. He is also the Director of Cyber Quarter - Midlands Centre for Cyber Security. He specialises in security and privacy for communication networks. Pillai has led several national/international research projects in the areas of networking protocols and cyber security. He has been invited for talks at various international conferences and has published over 100 papers within peer-reviewed journals and conferences.
The 2022 Queen's Birthday Honours are appointments by some of the 15 Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. The Birthday Honours are awarded as part of the Queen's Official Birthday celebrations during the month of June. They were announced on 1 June 2022, in anticipation of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. They were the last honours granted by the Queen before her death on 8 September 2022.
